James Paytiamo explains how his grandfather came to be field chief for life.

The water supply of a village is its most important concern, and Acoma, being many hundred feet in the air, is greatly dependent upon the water-holes on top of the mesa. There are three large reservoirs and several smaller ones. No one may wash in th...

An American traveling with the band of Apache chief Mangas Colorado helps to free two young Mexican captives.

It has already been stated that my tent was pitched several hundred yards from the rest of the Commission, and hidden from the view of my companions by an intervening hillock. This fact rendered me far more cautious than I otherwise would have been. ...

Author(s):
Captain William French (Author); Recollections of a Western Ranchman

Recollections of ranching in southwestern New Mexico, near the town of Alma, 1883-1899.

After Thanksgiving we settled down to our usual routine. Things were going along smoothly when one afternoon we were startled by a messenger from our friends at the SU (ranch). This man brought word that there was trouble between the Mexicans and the...

Hilda Faunce writes about her life at a trading post before the first World War (1914-1918). In this passage, she describes a terrible smallpox epidemic on the reservation.

I never should have supposed I could be calm in a smallpox epidemic. It came upon us suddenly and almost immediately dozens of our friends and customers were dead.
The Indians came to the post with their bodies covered with sores; they lay down o...

Between the times of battle the family traveled throughout Tchihéné lands and beyond. Usually it was in quest of plant foods or game, but whatever their reason, the journeys provided Dilth-cleyhen’s maternal kin time to inform the youngster more ...

José B. Cuellar rewrote the lyrics of the second verse of this classic, two-hundred-year-old Mexican ballad, or corrido, to describe peoples experience crossing the US-Mexico today.

I’m a poor little deer who lives
In the hills
Since I’m not very tame, I don’t
Come down during daylight
By night little by little and into
Your arms my dear
I climbed the highest hill to
See the plains
Where eagles triumph, hawks...